


isn't she lovely

by afire



Series: truly the angel's best [1]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Mentions of Blood, Poetic Language, i talk about hacking and coughing a lot, take care of yourselves kids!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 22:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12263793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afire/pseuds/afire
Summary: Maya's sitting cross-legged on the floor, Riley leaning down from the bed. Her phone rings, screen lighting up with someone else's name. Maya doesn't get to see who it is before she's heaving again.The flowers pile at her feet, and she can't help but think they would be beautiful if they weren't coming out of her mouth.





	isn't she lovely

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Taste of Dirt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663425) by [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative). 



> **hanahaki disease (noun)**   
>  _a disease where the victim regurgitates and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love_
> 
> (hover over flowers for meanings, will add them in end notes too)

There's purple _everywhere._

It's on the floor, across her sheets, all over her hands. Lavender, orchids, hibiscus. The sunlight filtering through her window is tinted purple.

Maya hates it.

She coughs, and even more flowers appear, floating out in a puff of air to land in the growing pile on the floor. She wipes viciously at her mouth, picking up the broom she keeps in the corner.

She'll clean up, and tomorrow her room will be purple again.

 

**/**

 

Riley doesn't know how to help her, Maya doesn't know how to tell her to stop trying.

"Peaches, why won't you go to a doctor? You're _sick_ and you're not getting any better and I can't do _anything._ "

Maya's sitting cross-legged on the floor, Riley leaning down from the bed. Her phone rings, screen lighting up with someone else's name. Maya doesn't get to see who it is before she's heaving again.

The flowers pile at her feet, and she can't help but think they would be beautiful if they weren't coming out of her mouth.

She can feel the petals sticking to her throat, silky and smooth and horrible.

They're always purple, Maya doesn't want to wonder why.

 

**/**

 

She goes to Zay's house and he's hunched over in his bathroom, spitting blue into the sink.

Maya looks at him, purple lining her lips, and they both smile in the same, tragic way.

"Gum doesn't work," she says, tasting the perfume of lavender between her teeth.

"I know," Zay replies, reaching into the cupboard beneath the sink and emerging with a bottle of mouthwash.

It's blue.

Maya barks out a laugh, watching as she exhales hyacinths, as they float down to join Zay's bluebells in the sink.

"Masochism isn't a good look on you."

"It was on discount."

"Try flossing," Maya says, pulling a box out of her pocket and throwing it at him.

 

**/**

 

They go to Topanga's and Riley sits next to Maya, as close as she can get, pressed skin to skin, never moving further than half an inch away.

Maya can actually taste the lemonade that she's slowly sipping at, squished between Riley and the wall, her eyes brighter than they've been in a while.

Across from her, Zay is smiling at something on his phone.

He meets her eyes, and she can see that he's better than he's been in days.

Lucas walks in and Riley calls his name, waves him over.

Maya chokes on a sip of lemonade, and when she coughs into her hand, she sees purple. Her mouth tastes like dirt, like the soil in the flowerpots that line the bay window.

Zay glances worriedly at her, pulling her aside so they can talk.

"I'm fine," she says, eyeing Lucas as he takes her spot next to Riley.

"Maya, there's catmint in your teeth."

She snaps her mouth shut, turns around and walks right out the door.

 

**/**

 

Riley is convinced Maya's allergic to something at school.

"You're always better on the weekends," she says, brows furrowed in worry, wringing her hands as Maya blinks tiredly in response, leaning against the door of her locker.

Zay walks by, and he presses a box of dental floss into her hands. Maya smiles close-mouthed at him, and Riley watches as he walks away.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing," Maya says, snapping the box open and pulling a line of floss out, dragging it through her teeth. It comes away purple and she sighs, fingers tightening around the container. "It's nothing."

 

**/**

 

Farkle finds her just as she's walking out of the bathroom, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

He's frowning, and Maya has no interest in talking to him.

"I'm fine," she says, moving to brush past him and go back to class.

He catches her by the shoulder, grip surprisingly strong. "I can help," he says, "find out what's wrong, how to get better."

Maya doesn't have the heart to tell him that she's tried and there's nothing that can help her, so she just coughs into her fist, depositing the petals that fall out of her mouth into his hand.

"I know what's wrong," she says, "and I'll never get better."

 

**/**

 

Lucas tries to talk to her.

Maya almost chokes on the carnations that clog up her throat at the sound of his voice. This time, when she heaves onto the grass, the flowers come with blood.

He takes a step forward, startled and concerned, and Maya flinches back, eyes wide in panic.

"Don't," she says stiffly, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve, "you'll make it worse."

His eyes flash with hurt, but Maya doesn't have it in her to care.

"I just want to help."

"You can't," she says, already walking away, wanting to put as much distance between them as possible, needing to be close to Riley. "Stop trying."

 

**/**

 

Purple litters her clothes, sticking to the fabric of her jeans, braided into the messy curls of her hair. Maya's given up on brushing them away, she sits on the empty basketball courts in school, occasionally coughing more flowers into the sky. 

Someone sits next to her, and Maya sighs, closing her eyes.

"I can't live like this, Zay."

There's blue all over his face when she looks over, and he's smiling that same, sad smile he always does when they find themselves together.

"I hate the color blue."

"I'd trade you if I could."

"I think I'd hate purple too," he says, and she laughs roughly. Her next coughs are wet, ripping harshly from her throat, and when she heaves the flowers out and wipes at her mouth, her hand comes away stained with blood.

"Red's even worse."

 

**/**

 

Riley finds her in Central Park, where she's sitting under a tree and pretending the flowers surrounding her are just a sign of oncoming spring.

She's getting worse.

She doesn't care.

"You and Zay are getting pretty close," Riley says, and there's a strained tone to her voice.

Maya sighs, opening her eyes. "I guess." She doesn't mention Lucas, because the sleeves of all her shirts are dotted with blood and she can't keep hiding them from her mother. "He's nice to me."

Riley doesn't reply, but Maya stops coughing, at least for a little while, and that's as good as it's going to get.

 

**/**

 

Zay comes to visit her the next morning and he can't look into her eyes.

"Maya, I can barely see anything else."

She sighs, closes her eyes and tries to remember the color of her carpet.

"I know, Zay. I know."

 

**/**

 

She's drowning in it, the purple. It's in all her nightmares. Maya can't go anywhere without seeing the horrible, horrible color.

She wakes up in cold sweat and there's piles and piles of it on her pillow, staining the white of her sheets. Her tears are tinted purple and Maya can't remember when she started crying.

She goes to school in the morning with purple in her mouth and on the collar of her shirt, purple stuck to the bottom of her shoe and flaking from her hair. There's purple in her ribs and purple in her lungs, she breathes purple into the hot, dry air. It's everywhere and Maya can't escape.

She doesn't know if she wants to anymore.

 

**/**

 

Riley calls her in the middle of the night. Maya picks up because her best friend's voice still soothes her throat even though it shouldn't, even though she's so, so tired and can't see anything but purple.

"Honey," she says, feeling like her words are anything but. "What's wrong?"

"Peaches, it's _everywhere._ " Riley sounds choked, like she's close to tears. "How do I stop it?"

Maya freezes, heart thumping wildly in her chest. "Don't move," she says.

She goes over to Riley's house, climbing in through the bay window. Everything is yellow, and Riley is hiccoughing more into her hands.

Sunflowers, snapdragons, tulips.

Yellow dusts the floor, covering the seat of the bay window, falling from in between Riley's fingertips.

Maya stares and stares and stares. Then she takes out her phone.

"Let me call Zay."

Riley lurches forward and yellow pours from her throat.

 

**/**

 

"She's got it too."

"What?"

"Hers is yellow, Zay, it's yellow. Luca-" She chokes on his name, bringing her hand to her mouth, not even wincing when the petals that fall from between her lips are stained red.

There's a silence, and then Zay sighs.

"Maya, have you ever looked in the mirror?"

 

**/**

 

Summer arrives, chasing away the last of spring.

The flowers disappear.

Maya sits in the bay window with her sketchbook and a pencil and Riley's head in her lap. When she smiles, her teeth are white. Riley leans in to kiss her and the only color that stains her cheeks is a faint pink.

She never has to use dental floss ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> definition for hanahaki was lifted from urban dictionary! i've been wanting to write a piece based on this concept for a while now and here we are! is the rilaya fandom still alive? beats me, i'll never stop loving them though.
> 
> some notes  
> \- maya's flowers are purple because of riley's purple cats, i'm aware that maya herself is the purple cat but i wanted to highlight the misunderstanding that's present in the narrative, maya doesn't understand the purple cat, she thinks it's riley, and therefore because maya doesn't understand that riley loves her, the flowers are purple  
> \- riley's flowers are yellow because i wanted to subvert the 'you turn gold' line  
> \- (i just thought it'd be more interesting than defaulting to yellow and pink, the obvious choice)
> 
> flowers! (in chronological order)  
> lavender - growing up  
> orchids - love and strength  
> hibiscus - a perfect girl  
> hyacinths - i am sorry, please forgive me  
> broken catmint - loss of affection (they were all ripped in her mouth)  
> carnation - regret that love cannot be shared  
> bluebells - everlasting love  
> sunflowers - adoration and loyalty  
> tulips - hopeless love  
> snapdragons -concealment
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://taylorswift.co.vu) if you wanna talk! i'll happily answer questions, take requests etc.
> 
> until next time, toodles!


End file.
